


Into the Void

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Ocean, Original Merman/Original Male Sailor who cannot swim, Out of Body Experiences, Rescue, Water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-05-20 18:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19382350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Brent isn't sure what drew him out to sea when he knew he couldn't swim, but it probably had something to do with what he couldn't find on land.





	Into the Void

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).



Sometimes Brent wasn’t even really sure what had pulled him onto the ship. He had started out just _wishing_ , _wishing_. All of his life he had sought for something, and he didn’t feel even now that it was clear what that intangible was.

He had not found it on land, of that he was absolutely certain, and so the sea was left.

The sea with all of its roaring quiet, its peacefulness and its wakefulness that taught him of how these things could mesh together and become one thing. So many things. The ocean was so many things.

If he sat with each of the crew and talked, he knew each of them would give him another reason for being drawn to the sea, and that each would respect his own.

They were there together now, the seamen, and they worked as a crew or would die as a crew, to a man. It was a thrilling and important kind of pressure, and it was one that he was sure kept his heart beating in a way.

Live by the sea, die by the sea. And in fact, Brent had every reason to be in greater mortal danger than some of his crewmen.

Brent could not swim.

It was a simple fact, and one that would warn many men away from the water and yet it was a fact he had accepted long ago as part of the bargain he struck with the sea and perhaps the earth itself. 

The sea would have its way with him and he would be at peace with that. He had been at peace with it for a long time. 

On the day that it finally happened--he fell in the water--there was a gale strong enough to blot out all sound that didn’t belong to the wind alone.

His feet slipped through the water on deck and he found himself pushed against the rail of the ship, holding on but knowing all the while that it was a losing battle. 

The softness he felt as he hit the waves was not something that he expected. It was as if the water itself, doing its worst, could not touch him. As if he was outside of his body at the moment of impact. And that could bring with it worry, but worry was the last thing on Brent’s mind. This was as he had envisioned it, if he never did find that intangible something at sea after all.

And yet.

Out of the waves came a body that had not been there before. Here was the most beautiful being that Brent had ever seen, with the upper body of a man, and his lower half undoubtedly the tail and scales of a fish. The being, straight out of a fisherman’s tale, had a song on his lips that he sang as he held Brent.

“We wait for ye in the waves,” the merman said. And Brent knew without being told that it may be the merman’s duty to dispatch him and yet--

“To shore,” the merman said, and they took off, with Brent still hovering above himself to behold all that was before him, toward the shore which was closer and closer, closer and closer.

There was a hum of music in the air: _All is well, all is well._

And the merman laid him against the sand, and as he laid his lips against the salor’s Brent came back into his body with an unceremonious thud and the fear of what had just happened hit him.

“Safe,” the merman murmured, and his voice was of music and sea foam. “You may not belong along on a boat but came to see what ye would find and it was me, you see.”

And indeed Brent did.

He let the merman enfold him, take him, be one with him there on the shore and he knew that he had found what was meant for him, whichever way he had gone looking.


End file.
